Who should pick up Sprint?

The reason why Sprint’s stocks are down 15% is because AT&T and T-Mobile are merging and it seems that Sprint is baked for a pick up in the rapidly-consolidating wireless mobile space. This raises the next question: who should pick up a Sprint?

This deal will include assets of Clearwire and WiMax 4G network which is valued at just over 1billion dollars. This would make a buyout in the range of 20 billion dollars, but this is still only about half of the T-mobile deal.

Another candidate is Verizon. A reason to make a move on their competition is to force FTC/FCC into action. If AT&T–T-Mobile is not a sufficient reason to get the regulators off their back, a further duopoly perspective could be enough.

In the same way that AT&T benefits from T-Mobile added subscribers, compatible networks, and added spectrum, Verizon could use the same arguments to justify the purchase.

Verizon is not the only potential suitor- 2 new faces are right around the corner.
The first one is Comcast, and this move will allow cable operators to offer services of home internet, Cable TV, telephone and wireless. Comcast has two big competitors, AT&T and Verizon, because they have some wireless networks which Comcast obviously does not.

Google is another possible suitor. They announced an integration plan today for Google Voice and this would make every Sprint phone act like a Google phone. Google has a lot of ISP ambitions and had been seen binding with wireless spectrum before.

There are also a lot of companies that could bid for Sprint, companies like Microsoft, Nokia, Rim, and other domestic or imported private public entries.